Cannibal Mouse

Clive "James" Python

In a Q&A Adam Savage did in 2010, he was asked if there were any myths they did, but never made it to TV, it would seem in a 2006 episode of the Mythbusters show episode 55 "Steam Cannon", one of the myths was to see if there is more nutrition in a cardboard box than the cereal.

Adam Savage said this about it...

Unknown Woman: Are there any myths that you did, but never made TV?

Adam Savage: That I- that I which?

Unknown Woman: That you did but never went on TV

Adam Savage: Ummm... [Makes pop sound] Yes [Pause]

[The audience laughs]

Adam Savage: Ummm... There is one [laughts] that-if-uh when you're a kid you always want the most sugary cereal, right. And your moms all like "No, Grape-Nuts or Cheerios" and you're like "No! Super Sugar Crisp" and your mom says "the box is more nutritious than the cereal"

[The audience laughs]

Adam Savage: So we tested that, we got some lab mice and we set up a set of cages and we had one cage where the mice were eating regaler mouse food, another cage in wich some very happy mice were eating Fruit Loops and a third cage in wich the mice were eating these little mouse-food-like pellets of cardboard that Jamie [Hyneman] hade made

And things went fine for, uh, about a, about five days and Jamie was the one monitoring because when Jamie was 15, you might not know, he actually owned a pet store at the local mall in Columbus, Indiana. Uh, so he was the one monitoring the-the-the mice and it was Fryday afternoon he's going to do the final pre-weekend check and it all looked like their pretty good, except for the [pause] cardboard mice are admittedly a little, like

[Adam Savage moves his body so his right is lower than his left and shakes his body]

There. Somethings different [Adam stops moving his body] about their movement than the other two cages, um. So he packs up, turns the lights out and comes home. We came into Monday morning, um, the situation was very, very different in that the cage with the cardboard there no longer three mice, there was one really fat mouse.

[The audience laughs a little, but most seem to be put off]

And the other two mice were like, like from a Chuck Jones commercial, they looked like the fat mouse had eaten them like corn on the cob, they were a head and a tail and nothing but a rib cage in between.

[The audience is off putt]

So we immediately nicknamed him "Killer". And I held him up to the camera and said "This is what happens when mice attack!" and we thought is was really hilarious and Discovery did not think it was very hilarious.

[The audience laughs]

And then, but the time Discovery didn't think it was very hilarious I'd gotten a ruff cut on my computer and I took it and I showed it at a college, I think like Northern Michigan Tech, or something like that and got this massive response and Discovery called up and were like "please don't ever show that again"

[The audience laughs]

So that's never going to see the light of day, unfortunately, but I can talk about it- it's freakin' hilarious

Due to it being graphic animal violence, it is very unlikely it would ever resurface, considering Mythbusters tries its best to keep a family-friendly image and not show any harm happen to living beings (not testing the myth of "drying a dog in a microwave" in any form, for instance).

One thing I find weird is why Adam is so happy about the one mouse cannibalising the others.


References

I.
Mythbusters "Cannibal Mouse" (Lost segment of TV Program; 2006) - The Lost Media Wiki
http://lostmediawiki.com/Mythbusters_%22Cannibal_Mouse%22_(lost_segment_of_TV_series;_2006) [archive.is]

II. Cannibal Mouse: The MythBusters Episode You'll Never See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQWDnFSPt8 [Internet Archive, archive.is]

Written by Clive "James" Python, 02/02/17.

http://owlman.neocities.org/library/cannibalmouse.html
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://owlman.neocities.org/library/cannibalmouse.html